The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-07-09
HYpRoFHoeiA CURED.


A French man of letters, NJ Henri
Gaidoz, has just published a most curl
Gus and valuable work on mad dogs
ola Rage ct st. Hubert which de-
monstrates the continuity, not only of
madness in the dog, but of folly in the
man. Dogs, says writer with refer
ence to this book, have probably gone
mad from the beginning and man has,
from the beginning, actually tried to
cure himself with ''a hair" or portion
of the flesh of the dog that bit him.
Pliny in his natural history recommends
luncheon of boiled dog as the sovran-
est thing on earth for hydrophobia.
They all do it, in Europe, in India,
in China, and M. Gaidoz quotes Mr.
TAYLOR and the Edna. Notes and Qater-
ies. with May other authorities IN this
ludicrous piece of popular medicine Put
ting on the wound burnt cinder of a dog
is also good prescription, according to
Pliny. Mad dogs are far older than
Pliny, and are mentioned in the Eighth
book of the Iliad. AS to why a dog
goes mad, beyond his wish ''to serve
his private ends (he explanation of
Goldsmith), the ancients and foreign
peoples had variety of opinions. Sir
Richard Burton, in his Pilgrimage to
Mecca" found that Arab dogs 90 mad
when they have tasted of flesh that falls
from heaven. The foam of the sea, in
classical times, was thought to turn
dogs mad which drank it; but dog
which would drink sea-foam would do
any thing. and is clearly mad already.
As M. GaidOz remarks, in popular med
ieine every disease is caused either by
enchantment or by the indwelling of a
devil Gas in epilepsy, or by worms.
which may be short for microbes.
In Scotland the wise man still shows
you, in basin of water, the worms that
cause toothache. They are not exactly
big enough to use for bait for trout; but
they are many thousands of times bigger
than microbes. The worm that
makes dogs go deranged is presumed to
reside in his tail, which the human,
therefore, are often at pains to bite off
"a process frowned on by more edu-
Gated enthusiasts. Needless to sAs
1hat the root of the dogrose has beeq
recommended as a cure, simply because
the flower is called dogrose.
Another way" as the cookery
books have it, of curing hydrophobia in
ancient times was to drink the water
of a certain fountain in Arcadia. The
earth of Lemnos taken in water was
also excellent. In Nine. de Sevigne's
time people went to the seaside for hy-
dronhobia Odd11- onO,,crb tbo Eroo1rc
do not appear to have employed eau
terizatiOn. The goddess who cured
mad dogs and their bites was naturally
Diana, ''whose joy" as we think no
less an authority than Richardus Swiv
ellerus observes, sis in the chase"
and who, therefore, is interested il
hounds. The goddess Diana is flea,
but if NJ. Gaidoz be right the power of
the g0ddess in the matter of hydrophc.-
bia is not yet extinct it has only been
handed on to ST. Hubert. This gentlo-
man was of the blood of King Phara-
mond. We all know how he met a
miraculous stag, with a cruciiX be-
tween it's horns, and how he was con-
verified. 1t is less familiar that Our
Lady, when he was consecrated bishop
sent him down a beautiful stole from
Heaven, in the hands of an angel. This
cole still exists in the town of ST. Uu-
bert-Poix is the statiOn-and ye.
reach the holy place by tramway. X
is not the physical relics of st. He-
bert that now work miracles and cure
hydrophobia; it is the sacred stole that
fell from Heaven. The stole is used
in the exorcism of evil spirits generally;
and is SO efficaciOus that it has before
now made dragon as mild as sheep.
People bitten by mad dogs were con-
fused, perhaps, with the common herd !
of people possessed with devils by the |
church. The way in which the stole is
used has now to be described. The |
method is at least as old as the eleventh
century, and even then was styled ''the |
ordinary manner" The process is
called la taiIte. The patient is taken
into the treasury of the abbey, where |
the relics lie. The penitent (for that is
the technical term) kneels before the |
priest, who recites certain formula, !
after which the penitent utters a brief !
prayer to ST. Hubert. Then the priest, |
with pen-knife, makes a shallow in !
cision in the skin of the forehead of the |
man who has been bitten. The skin is |
slightly raised, and thread or two of |
the sacred stole that was brought down
by the angel is introduced. A bandage !
is then put round the head and worn |
for nine days. The cure, in fact, is |
merely the bodily insertion into the
flesh of sacred object, a scrap of a
relic.-St James Gazette.